Durga – the bewitching, radiant ten-armed goddess. The benevolent mother of beings and the ravaging destroyer of evil. The one, who with her arrival, heralds peace and happiness into the realm of mortals. Durga, who is worshipped as a goddess, revered as a mother, and feared as the embodiment of anger. The ten-armed Goddess Durga was created as an amalgam of the powers of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar to defeat the water-buffalo demon Mahisasur. While in the northern part of the country the goddess is worshipped in a more effeminate avatar, in the eastern and the southern parts, she is invoked more as the warrior-goddess – the destroyer of evil. As the year proceeds towards those nine days when people immerse themselves in welcoming Durga to the earth, here’s a stroll down the nine forms of the goddess…